ISRO: The First Move

Khushaal Mishra

ISRO: The First Move

Were you aware of the fact that the prominent space organisation ISRO that we all are super proud of got its start in a little country church? How was ISRO established, and how did India launch its first rocket?

ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru; Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

When the scientists finally brought the rocket in position manually, they realised that the remote launch system has also malfunctioned. The day had set while fixing this problem, and finally, the launch time had arrived. Everyone had their eyes on India. On the evening of 21st November 1963, at 6:25 pm the launch countdown began. Under the setting sun, India successfully launched their first rocket and took its first step toward space.

On the occasion of India's 22nd Independence, on 15th August 1969, INCOSPAR took on a new form, and thus ISRO was born. Indian Space and Research Organization, a unique organization that found water on the moon by sending the Chandrayaan, and by sending the Mangalyaan to Mars made India a powerful entity in the world of space.

He realised that in the church of Mary Magdalene, the compass needle neither pointed north nor south, meaning this church was situated on the magnetic equator. And the village was close to the geographic equator. He knew the closer the rocket launching station is to the earth's geometric equator, the planetary spin gives a speed boost to the rocket's launch, making this place for perfect for a launching station.

When Dr Sarabhai and his fellow scientists met the church's bishop, to talk about buying the church's land, Reverend Peter Pereira smiled and invited everyone to the Sunday mass. During the mass, the Bishop presented Dr Sarabhai's request in front of the villagers and explained that science and spirituality both work for human prosperity, where science tries to make our lives better while spirituality our mind.

Hearing the Bishop's words the villages gave their agreement, and the village was relocated in under 100 days. The same church was used to make a rocket design and assembly centre. The Bishop's home was used for a space engineering workshop, and the church's cowshed was the new laboratory. The village became Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Centre. When NASA's rocket was brought to the launch platform, everyone saw a unique scene. Our scientists were bringing the rocket parts on a cycle. Everything was going well when suddenly while assembling the rocket, and assembling on the launcher the hydraulic crane began to leak.

Since the 1920s several scientists were performing space experiments in India. The leading among them were SK Mitra, Meghnad Saha, and CV Raman. The organized space research in India was first led by two scientists, Dr Homi Bhabha, who is known as the Father of Atomic Energy and Dr Vikram Sarabhai, who in 1947 established the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Sarabhai's dream was to develop space technology for India, which he could use for the interest of the country.

His dream got inspiration when in 1957 Russia launched the Sputnik 1 satellite. For a country like India to develop expensive space technology was a big challenge. But despite the challenge, Dr Homi Bhabha and Dr Vikram Sarabhai met Prime Minister Nehru and convinced him to invest him in space. Finally in 1962, under the leadership of Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the Indian National Committee for Space Research, aka INCOSPAR was established. Owing to Dr Sarabhai's efforts NASA signed an agreement, to lend their rocket Nike-Apache Rocket to India.

The objective of INCOSPAR was to successfully launch this rocket. But for that, they required a rocket launching station. In search of a launching location Dr Sarabhai scouted several locations around the country, and finally reached a small fishermen's village called Thumba, in Thiruvananthapuram of Kerala.